Brazil’s Telecall expands fiber to interconnect new Rio datacenters

Brazilian telecom services company Telecall is expanding its fiber optics network used to interconnect the main datacenters in Rio de Janeiro, the company's senior VP Bruno Ajuz (pictured) told BNamericas. 

The group is also preparing to launch fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) services, relying on a neutral fiber network, and aims to become the sixth largest mobile operator in the country, deploying the MVNOmodel.

Telecall has more than 1,000km of underground fiber deployed in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo to service the corporate market. 

“Rio de Janeiro is receiving a lot of investments in datacenters, and this area has grown a lot within the company. For this year and into 2024, we intend to expand our fiber network to meet the demand for datacenter connectivity,” said Ajuz.

Three new redundant and underground fiber routes, totaling 80km, will be deployed by Telecall to connect at least four new datacenters that are being installed in Rio de Janeiro. One of the routes is 80% complete.

These datacenters are projects by Ascenty, Scala, Odata and Equinix. “We will have these three routes coming out of these four sites.”

Telecall's existing network in Rio de Janeiro starts at the anchor point of international submarine cables on Macumba beach, passing through teleports and following the coast toward the north of the city before arriving at the datacenters. 

All the main datacenters in Rio de Janeiro use Telecall's fiber network, Ajuz said.

The company's wholesale customers include Facebook, Seaborn, GlobeNet, Google, Equinix and Globo and its network also serves Elea Digital.

Telecall uses fiber manufactured by Furukawa and dense wavelength division multiplexing equipment, used to illuminate (activate) the fiber, by Brazil’s Padtec.

“Our network was designed to serve the major service providers. I usually say that we have three big customers: datacenters, OTTs [over-the-top companies], and carriers and internet service providers,” said Ajuz.

Source: Telecall

FTTH

Still, as part of the fiber investments, the company intends to launch FTTH services and directly serve households by the middle of the year, targeting 10 localities in Rio de Janeiro state, said Ajuz.

For this project, Telecall will use the fiber infrastructure of a neutral network operator but Ajuz did not reveal whether it’s V.tal's or FiBrasil's.

Telecall is already leasing its own fiber network to large carriers.

TIM relied on Telecall’s networks to offer 5G at the Rock in Rio event in September and Telecall’s fiber infrastructure also supported TIM’s launch of a 5G network at Maracanã stadium.

Telecall's network will now serve as basis for the activation of TIM's 5G network at the Sambódromo in Rio de Janeiro for the carnival parade, according to Ajuz.

MVNO

Telecall intends to advance in the operation of mobile voice and data telephony services for MVNOs, where it operates as an MVNE (enabler) or MVNA (aggregator).

In this model, the company offers its systems and networks to enterprises that are interested in launching their own mobile operations. Telecall's main competitor in this field is MVNE Surf Telecom, followed by Datora and AméricaNet.

Telecall has 33 MVNOs listed in its base, of which 22 are operational, said Ajuz, totaling 330,000 accesses. In January, accesses of Telecall's MVNOs grew 10% compared to the previous month, according to the executive.

The network used is Telefônica Brasil's, although Telecall has its own network core, deployed by a major network equipment provider, such as Nokia, Ericsson or Huawei, enabled for 5G.

With this, other companies that participated in the 5G auction, infrastructure companies that acquired licenses for the network but never operated mobile telephony, can plug in to Telecall's core network to provide services.

Ajuz said Telecall's goal is to become the sixth largest mobile operator in Brazil by mid-year.

“The MVNO [market] still has a lot of room to grow, it is just starting to take shape in Brazil. With around 1% of market share for these players, the country is still behind even other markets in Latin America. In countries like Chile and Colombia, MVNO market share reaches 8%, 10%,” he said.

Founded 24 years ago, Telecall operates in 25 Brazilian states and has offices in the US, Portugal and the UK. 

Last year, revenues grew around 40% year-over-year, reaching some US$100mn, with a 38% expansion planned for this year, said Ajuz.

At least 15mn reais (US$2.93mn) are earmarked for network expansion and 35mn reais could be invested in a 5G project the company is negotiating, according to Ajuz. 

He added that a good part of the company's investments in its expansion strategy was made last year and went to new hardware for the core network.

All spending comes from its own resources. Ajuz said Telecall has been approached by an international fund focused on digital and telecom infrastructure, but the talks have not progressed due to disagreements over the company's control.

Although the entry of a fund is not a priority at the moment, Ajuz said Telecall's doors are open to potential investors.